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date: 19 March 2018

Christian Missions and the State in 19th and 20th Century Angola and Mozambique

Summary and Keywords

Christian missionary work in Angola and Mozambique during the colonial and postcolonial eras was shaped by a complex of factors related to religion, education, and politics. Missionaries’ networks of local support played an outstanding role in their humanitarian work, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries.

By the end of the 19th century, Catholic and Protestant missions had established themselves in Angola and Mozambique. Until 1974, Protestants had a tense relationship with the Portuguese authorities, as they were suspected of serving the political interests of some European countries against Portugal, and later of supporting African opposition to colonial domination. Unlike the Protestants, the Catholic Church enjoyed a close collaboration with the ruling regime. Under the Concordat and the Missionary Accord of 1940 and the Missionary Statute of 1941, which were agreed between the Vatican and Portugal, Catholic missions enjoyed a privileged position to the detriment of Protestants, whose activities were severely restricted.

The years that followed the independences of Angola and Mozambique in 1975 were characterized by open hostility to religion, aggravated by the nationalization of missions’ assets and properties in both countries. Mission activities related to education and health became hard to carry out. With the civil wars in Angola and Mozambique, warfare and dislocation gave a new social role to the churches. Between the mid-1980s and 1990 the first signs of new policies emerged. While in Angola the relationship between church and state was marked by ambiguity and mistrust, cooperation and collaboration prevailed in Mozambique, where the 1980s saw a rapprochement and constructive dialogue between the two institutions. This was sealed by the roles both Protestants and Catholics played in the peace and democratization processes.

The political opening that characterized the 1990s and 2000s brought significant changes for both countries including the presence in the public space of new churches, especially those of Pentecostal denominations. The new sociopolitical contexts in Angola and Mozambique between the late 20th and early 21st centuries shaped the new roles of the missions, which remain more focused on social, rather than political, activities.

The partition and exploitation of the African continent, a product of capitalist development in Europe, was formalized politically at the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885. By the end of the 19th century, the borders of Angola and Mozambique were defined, as the result of a process that was poisoned by tensions between the imperialist powers with economic interests in southern Africa (namely, England, France, Belgium, and Germany) and Portugal. Due to local political resistance, this did not necessarily lead to immediate Portuguese occupation and control. In fact, Portugal only achieved political and administrative control over these territories during the early decades of the 20th century, after lengthy battles to subjugate their citizens and take charge of their resources.

From the 15th century onwards, Portugal’s “reconnaissance missions” (Missões Exploratórias) to the African continent were accompanied by Christianity. Indeed, Catholic mission work in areas that later fell within the borders of Angola and Mozambique is well documented.1 However, the missionary presence was not strong, and even declined throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The Padroado Português,2 adopted by Portugal, not only formalized the Catholic Church’s missionary work in Portugal (albeit in ways that took on different forms during the colonization process), but also restricted the presence of non-Portuguese missionaries in these territories.3

In Portugal, the 19th century was marked by political turbulence and anti-clerical measures. The consequent weakening of the Catholic Church during this period resulted in a reduced presence of its missions in Africa. By mid-century the Catholic presence was almost non-existent in both Mozambique and Angola4—although the missions reasserted themselves in those countries during the last decades of that century.5 This period was also marked by the arrival and establishment of Protestant missions and missionary societies, which then expanded significantly during the 20th century. From the beginning the Protestant presence was viewed with mistrust by the Portuguese colonial government, which suspected that under the guise of Christianity, the Protestants were actually serving the political interests of European economic powers, and therefore putting Portugal’s own political projects at risk. This uneasy relationship between the state and the Protestant churches would last until the overthrow of the Portuguese colonial system in 1974.6 The Berlin General Acts of 1885 and the Brussels Declaration of 1890 defended missionary freedom in Africa, and thus gave the Protestant missions legal cover and enabled their establishment, albeit under the tight control of the Portuguese authorities.

In Angola, despite the complicity between the Catholic Church and the colonial administration around the overseas civilizing policy, the presence of Protestant missions with different and more attractive methods of teaching the population and evangelizing approaches opened up a range of new opportunities for the education and religious training of Africans. Initially established in the northern interior, the missions and missionary societies later expanded into the central-southern region. Among the most notable were the London Baptist Missionary Society, the Methodist missions, the Plymouth Brethren, and the Congregationalist churches. According to Henderson, during the first years of Protestant penetration into Angola, the missionary societies “did not make formal agreements to divide Angola into spheres of occupation, but in practice each mission became the proprietor of a given area.”7 New Protestant missionary agencies, staffed by missionaries of various nationalities, arrived in Angola during the 20th century, resulting in an expansion into rural and urban areas, where both lay and religious African collaborators played an important role in both evangelization and education. At the same time, the existence of prophetic Christianity movements such as Kimbanguism and Tokoism must be acknowledged; according to Henderson, these were simultaneously both a boon and a challenge to the development of Christianity.8

In Mozambique, most missions settled in the southern region, even before the colonial administration´s effective occupation. There are some references to a Protestant presence in the center and north of the country, but these settlements were often quite short-lived.9 In his article on the archives and historiography of evangelical churches in Mozambique, Morier-Genoud mapped their presence in the country since the end of the 19th century.10 The map inserted in his text illustrates the concentration of evangelical Protestants in the southern region, as a consequence of the policies of political control maintained by the colonial state administration over the churches until the beginning of the 1960s.

From the early 1960 onwards, the Protestant churches established in southern Mozambique cautiously began to expand to central and northern areas, due to the weakening of the colonial legal framework’s oversight of their activities.

The most significant arrivals in Mozambique in the late 19th century came from neighboring countries, mainly present-day South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, and included the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) and Methodists, the University Missions for Central Africa, Swiss Presbyterian and Anglican missions, as well as representatives of Baptist and Nazarene churches. Although most of their personnel were white, they worked with local lay and religious collaborators, through whom they penetrated other regions.

In his study on the church in Angola, Henderson mentions that “the implantation and expansion of the Protestant church was essentially based on two pillars: the Bible and the school.”11 Its teaching methods privileged: i) local languages as communication tools for teaching and evangelizing; ii) more effective teaching-learning methodologies; iii) and an informal general education that enabled its believers and pupils to broaden their horizons of knowledge. The situation in Mozambique was the same. Thus, in both territories, missionaries produced linguistic and anthropological studies, published local-language grammars, translated the Bible and other books for the purpose of evangelizing, and in some cases produced newspapers in local languages.12

From the Republic to the End of Estado Novo

The advent of the Republic of Portugal in 1910 marked a new period in the relation between church and state.13 The secular movement took shape in 1911 with the approval of the Law of Separation between the two institutions, and gained momentum in the colonies in 1913.14 Supplementary legislation for the colonies that year15 meant that the Catholic Church lost its special status with regard to the subsidies and privileges it had been receiving from the Portuguese government. A less harsh road thus opened up for the Protestant missions. However, the work of the missions as “civilizing instruments”16 continued to serve the interests of empire-building under the flag of the Republic. Thus, in a context of secularism, the Catholic Church was positioned as a natural ally in building Portugal’s political project, and received privileged benefits which were to be used to support Portugal’s overall “civilizing and nationalizing” mission.17 The aim was to complement general schooling with vocational training through lay missions and the establishment of Escolas de Artes e Ofícios (trade schools), a process that had its genesis in the Republic and took shape in the following period.18

In 1919, Portugal signed the Saint Germain-en-Laye Convention, which guaranteed the free exercise of worship and protection for religious institutions, thus reinforcing the legal arrangements that emerged from Berlin permitting the presence of religious missions in Angola and Mozambique.

In 1926 a coup d’état in Lisbon19 put an end to the First Republic, and a fascist dictatorship was installed. The 1930 Acto Colonial (Colonial Act), and legislative reforms that followed, defined the main tenets of colonial policies “of an imperial, nationalist and centralizing nature,”20 which guided the following periods. The Carta Orgânica do Império Colonial Português and the Reforma Administrativa do Ultramar de 1933 (The Organic Charter of the Portuguese Colonial Empire and the Overseas Administrative Reform of 1933)21 were fundamental instruments for enabling the new regime to reorganize political and economic relations between Portugal and its colonies.

Additional policies were formulated during this period with the goals of promoting Portugal’s interests (“nationalization,” in the terminology of the time) in relation to the colonies and the indígena (native) population, and strengthening the natives’ integration into Portuguese culture through language (Portuguese). These were reinforced by the 1933 Constitution, which stipulated state protection of and assistance to the Portuguese Catholic missions overseas in their capacity as education and welfare institutions, and as civilizing instruments.22 The education policy for the indígena population, which would guide the next decades, was also defined in 1930.

In 1940 the Concordat and the Missionary Agreement formalized the institutional relationship between the Vatican and Portugal, establishing principles of mutual cooperation for the colonial enterprise. The Missionary Statute of 1941 regulated the agreement established with the Holy See and cemented the civilizing role of the missions, and made the Catholic Church responsible for educating the indígena population. After 1940, discrimination against non-Catholic religious institutions increased, and the activities of Protestant missions were restricted and regulated, particularly in the areas of education and social work. Meanwhile, Catholic missions were allowed to expand, and the privileges granted to them by the Missionary Statute helped them to spread even further.

The 1940s and 1950s were particularly difficult for the Protestant missions; political developments of the time led growing discrimination against them. Although the basic guiding principles of the relationship between the colonial administration and the indígena population had been in place since the First Republic (1910–1926),23 the Estatuto dos Indígenas Portugueses das Províncias da Guiné, Angola e Moçambique (Portuguese Indígena Statute of the Provinces of Guiné, Angola and Mozambique) was approved by the Decree of May 20, 1954, derived from the new legal dispositions passed by the Salazar regime. It continued to define the rights and duties of the indígena population in the Portuguese colonies until it was abolished in 1961,24 as part of the reforms introduced by Adriano Moreira.

The overseas territories were scarred by a discriminatory social structure and a native policy designed to strengthen the exploitation of labor by the colonial authority. This led to a demarcation of political positions that placed the Protestant missionaries in opposition to the colonial administration (who were allied with the Catholic Church), especially during the Estado Novo period. In the 1960s and 1970s the political situation in the colonies, aggravated by war, led to the deterioration of the relationship between the colonial administration and the Church in general—in particular, a profound state of crisis with regard to the Protestant churches, and with a sector of the Catholic Church composed of liberal and progressive individuals who opposed the political system in force in the colonies.25

Missions, Evangelization, and Education (1940–1961)

The 1940 Concordat and the Missionary Accord, complemented by the 1941 Missionary Statute, illustrate not only the expansion of Salazar’s nationalist project,26 but also the reinforcement of the “civilizing mission” allocated to the Catholic Church. The Missionary Statute (Art. 68) affirmed that the education of the indigenous population was to be under the control of the state and guided by constitutional principles. It also determined that education for indígenas would be geared toward the assimilation of Portuguese cultural norms, under the aegis of the Catholic missions (Art. 68).

The institutionalization of a separate educational system for indígenas led to the formalization of a racist policy, though its seeds had already been sown prior to the 1940s.27 In Angola and Mozambique, official differentiation of the primary-education system for the indígena population, together with other discriminatory policies, created a gulf between citizens (whites and assimilados) and indígenas.28 Citizens were taught by curricula identical to those taught in Portugal, while indígenas received “Rudimentary Education” (Ensino Rudimentar), later renamed “Education for Adaptation” (Ensino de Adaptação) in 1956.29 Rather than transmitting scientific knowledge, the aim of Rudimentary Education was to format consciousness.30

The Compulsory Use of Portuguese

The use of Portuguese as a means of ideological indoctrination and transmission of cultural values was always a fundamental ploy of the colonial education system. Restrictions on the use of vernacular languages in the African colonies were legislated even before the Estado Novo, and were then strengthened during that period. In Angola, Decree No. 77 of December 9, 1921 was promulgated by the administration of High Commissioner Norton de Matos, and was directly aimed at the Protestant missions that used the native languages for evangelizing and teaching. Article 3.1 of the Decree prohibited: “The use of written indigenous languages, or of any language other than Portuguese, in pamphlets, newspapers, loose sheets or manuscripts of any type, in the missions’ catechism, schools or in any relations with indígenas.”31 In Mozambique, Regulation 730/31 of December 1907 had regulated schooling in Portuguese: only officially approved books could be used in schools, and all teachers were required to know Portuguese.32 The 1929 legislation strengthened these measures in the following ways: i) teaching in vernacular languages was prohibited; ii) Portuguese was designated the language of communication and the language of religious propaganda; iii) “native” preachers were required to have a primary-school certificate and a contract of work with the mission; iv) the colonial administration gained the power to regulate the building of schools and their outbuildings, and teacher training for the indígena schools; and v) age limits were imposed for the indígena primary and boarding schools.33 Reinforcing the legislation passed for Angola and Mozambique, the Missionary Statute (Art. 16) restated that teaching in Portuguese was compulsory in the missionary schools for indígenas.34

The regulations on teaching for indígenas passed by the colonial government during the first decades of the 20th century, and successively strengthened during the Estado Novo, conflicted with the educational programs of the Protestant missionaries. As Henderson notes, in Angola, “the Protestants’ reception of Decree 77 was not very favorable, given that it represented a threat to their indígena teaching activities.”35 In Mozambique, similar regulations led the Protestant missionaries to react negatively.36

In Angola, the missionaries’ response to the restrictions imposed by Decree 77 led to the establishment of the Conferência Missionária de Angola (Angola Missionary Conference) in 1922, involving various Protestant missions. The initial aim was to facilitate dialogue with the government. In 1934, its name was changed to the Aliança Evangélica de Angola (Angola Evangelical Alliance). Its statutes underwent various amendments, not only to accompany new developments, but also to be able to represent both the missions and the churches. Although “the Alliance never obtained legal status,”37 according to Viegas, the Aliança Evangélica de Angola was legally recognized, with the date of its foundation given as December 27, 1974, in Benguela.38 Illustrating the way in which this “community” united to face the adversities imposed by Portuguese colonialism, Benedict Schubert writes: “Protestantism in Angola was not an institutional unit, it comprised a series of religious missions and denominations. Notwithstanding this, it is possible to speak of a unit of Protestantism in Angola, visible in a common Protestant culture, common methods of carrying out the mission, and a common position among the Protestant churches and missions towards the Portuguese authorities”.39

The evolution of the political situation in Mozambique in the 1940s and 1950s, and the need of the Protestant churches to find adequate responses to the constraints imposed by the colonial administration on their educational activities, resulted in interdenominational cooperation, as had been the case for the missionaries in Angola as well. The Conselho Cristão de Moçambique—CCM (Christian Council of Mozambique) was established in 1948, born out of the Portuguese East Africa Evangelical Missionary Association,40 which had been active since 1920. In the same spirit of cooperation, in 1958 the Presbyterian seminary at Ricatla, in the south of the country, was converted into an interdenominational seminary bringing together Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and the Church of Christ in Manica and Sofala.41 And, just like the Aliança Evangélica Angolana, the CCM was only registered after national independence, in 2006.

The Catholic missions received financial support from the Portuguese government for implementing the Rudimentary Education system. An analysis of available statistical data for Angola and Mozambique shows an increase in the number of Catholic schools, missions, and parishes after 1941. However, most of these Catholic schools had poor graduation rates and low educational standards.42 Using the 1958 Annual Overseas Statistics as a source, Eduardo de Sousa Ferreira demonstrates the poor quality of education that resulted from Estado Novo policies for the colonies through the illiteracy rates from the 1950 census: 96.97 percent for Angola, and 97.86 percent for Mozambique.43

While one can ascribe the low quality of indígena education to the poor training of indígena teachers and the paltry budgets allocated by the Portuguese state to the Rudimentary Education system, it is important to remember that the philosophy underlying this educational model was based on the need to serve the economic development interests of the colonial state, and therefore to train a population that would occupy low-level jobs. It never aimed to provide quality education.

In a pastoral letter of 1960, Cardinal Cerejeira, the Catholic Patriarch of Lisbon, provided a clear illustration of the educational goals for indígenas and the role of the Catholic missions:

We try to reach the native population both in breadth and depth to (teach them) reading, writing and arithmetic, not to make “doctors” of them . . . To educate and instruct them so as to make them prisoners of the soil, and to protect them from the lure of the towns, the path which with devotion and courage the Catholic missionaries chose, the path of good sense and political and social security for the province . . . schools are necessary, yes, but schools where we teach the native the path of human dignity and the grandeur of the nation which protects him.44

Post-World War II

The global changes that followed World War II had both direct and indirect consequences for the policies of Portugal and its colonies. For one thing, the environment became more favorable for the emergence of anti-colonial movements. The call for the total and immediate independence of all colonies issued by the Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945, and the independence won by British colonies in Asia in 1947–1948, strengthened this trend. Despite Europeans’ economic and strategic interests in their empires in Africa, it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to contain the impact of these political changes which, when combined with the socioeconomic crises then destabilizing the territories under Portuguese rule, contributed to the development of political protest movements.

Aware of the political tensions inside its African colonies, and as a candidate for membership in the United Nations, Portugal needed to undertake a series of reforms in order to meet the standards of the UN Charter; this reform process took place during the 1950s, and Portugal joined the United Nations in 1955. The legal reforms promulgated during this period include: i) the constitutional revision of 1951, by which the colonies were renamed as “Overseas Provinces”; and ii) the repeal in 1961 of the Indígena Statute, thus raising everyone born in Angola and Mozambique to the status of citizens. These reforms were followed by the abolition of forced cropping and forced labor. These measures prefigured a more complete integration of the territories into a unitary Portuguese state, in an attempt to avoid Portugal’s international isolation and respond to the modernization of the Portuguese capitalist system.

The repeal of the indígena statute deprived the Catholic Church of the legal basis that had given it the primary responsibility for—indeed, monopoly on—primary education for “native” populations in Portugal’s African colonies. As a consequence, a reform of primary education was initiated, and came into force in 1964.45

Angola was going through a period of political discontent at this time. The nationalist movements were organizing in Luanda and abroad, resulting in increased colonial repression,46 and many arrests between the mid-1950s and early 1960s. A similar period of anti-colonial contestation was taking place in Mozambique, which was likewise marked by heavy repression by the colonial authorities. Tension between the state and the Protestant churches grew in proportion to the large-scale expansion of those movements struggling against the current regime. In Angola in 1961, the government ordered the closure of some missions; others were abandoned or destroyed as the conflict deepened. In both Angola and Mozambique, the colonial administration grew increasingly suspicious of the foreign, Protestant missionaries; they were considered “guilty” of the “denationalization” of local citizens, and accused of fomenting pro-independence movements and political positions through their teaching. Police surveillance over them and their activities intensified. An illustration of this was the refusal of entry visas to Protestant missionaries, as well as the expulsion of missionaries from Angola.47

But the war did not spare the Catholic missionaries either, who were forced to abandon various mission stations in northern Angola. In Angola as in Mozambique, although the Catholic Church as an institution continued to enjoy a privileged relationship with the colonial state, voices were being raised within the Church against the political situation in both countries. The changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council affected the positions of some sectors of the Catholic Church in Angola, while in Mozambique, criticisms of the political system by both clergy and laypeople were also increasing.48 The government’s response to the more radical positions of the Catholic clergy was deportations, expulsions, repressive measures, and tight control over institutions and individuals.

Nationalism, Armed Conflicts, and Missions (1961–1975)

The absence of political rights, combined with generalized popular discontent, fueled the rise of nationalist movements in Angola and Mozambique, and, eventually, armed conflict, when it became clear that dialogue with the colonial administration would not lead to freedom.

In Angola, the historical context of Portugal’s colonization process, combined with the influence of Christian missions and the impact of Protestant educational methods on the training of elites, must be taken into account in order to understand the genesis of the nationalist movements that launched the armed liberation struggle.49 The most important movements to be considered in this analysis are the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), founded in 1956; the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), founded in 1961 through the fusion of the União dos Povos de Angola (UPA; prior to 1954 the União dos Povos do Norte de Angola) and the Partido Democrático de Angola (PDA); and the União Nacional para a Total Independência de Angola (UNITA), founded in 1966.

These movements included in their ranks adherents of various religious denominations. As noted by Didier Péclard: “The leaders of the three nationalist movements all came from Protestant families with strong ties to either Methodist (in Luanda and its hinterland), Baptist (in the north), or Congregationalist (in the central highlands) missions.”50 Some scholars have highlighted the interplay between ethnic-linguistic and regional links in the formation of religious identities, while questioning the ethnic-regional role of Angolan Protestantism, and discussing the negative impacts that this association had on the national liberation movements.51 Therefore, the MPLA was with the Kimbundu ethnic group and with Methodists, particularly in Luanda; while the FNLA was understood to be linked with the Baptists and the Bakongo in northern Angola. Finally, in the case of UNITA, links have been identified with the Congregational Church on the central plateau, and with the Ovimbundu.52 These movements were led by Agostinho Neto, Holden Roberto, and Jonas Savimbi respectively.

Analyzing the sociopolitical situation in Angola and the outbreak of war, Didier Péclard states that: “the politics of religion in colonial Angola tended to increase existing social, regional, cultural, racial, and economic divides within Angolan society. It therefore had a direct influence on the development of anti-colonial nationalism and the divisions between two, and later three, nationalist movements during the anti-colonial war (1961–1974).”53

In Mozambique, the nationalist movements were slower to coalesce, but they did eventually create the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front, or FRELIMO) in 1962, uniting three exile movements (UDENAMO, MANU and UNAMI). Eduardo Mondlane, its first president, and some members of the elite that composed its ranks in exile and in the underground movement in the south, had been socialized and educated in Protestant missions.54 However, its members also included nationalists from diverse religious origins, including Catholics.

The 1960s was an important decade in the history of the Portuguese colonies in Africa. The radicalization of the struggle against colonial oppression through wars for liberation was a historic milestone. The armed uprisings in 1961 in Angola, followed by those in Mozambique in 1964, signaled the beginning of an armed struggle against colonial domination that would only end in 1974.

Throughout the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, repression against citizens of the two countries reached calamitous levels. Persecution, arrests, and harsh restrictions on movement increased exponentially in both cities and the countryside. Following the intensification of the war, the 1970s revealed the full weight of colonial aggression. The massacres of peasants in rural areas, and the general brutality of the colonial regimes, created exile and refugee populations, while denunciations of the brutality led to the internationalization of the war.55 In Angola, the northern population took refuge in neighboring countries. With no possibility of being able to work, the Baptist missionaries went into exile.56 The Methodists and Congregationalists likewise found their work hampered by war.

In Mozambique, the framework for Portuguese domination was similar to that in other Portuguese colonies in Africa. Repressive measures against non-Catholic clergy and laypeople increased, while the Portuguese simultaneously attempted to co-opt both Protestants and Muslims into supporting the colonial administration.57 The PIDE/DGS archives contain evidence of these efforts.58

The blossoming of African independent churches (AICs) from the 1920s onwards, combined with the influence of religious ideas brought back from neighboring countries (South Africa, Malawi, and present-day Zimbabwe) by Mozambican migrant workers, the Africanization and processes of inculturation that characterized some Protestant denominations, and the colonial state’s growing fears with regard to African elites educated within the Protestant churches, all meant that the administration continued its vigilance over both black elites and Protestant churches. Following the start of the armed national liberation struggle, the colonial system tightened its political control and intensified its repression, with arrests and assassinations carried out on the slightest suspicion. The security system created during the 1960s and 1970s was thus ready to crush any organization or individual when their actions seemed to threaten the colonial project.

The incorporation of the Catholic Church into the colonial project through the Concordat was a cause of tension within the Church itself. The worsening war, and the massacres committed in the center and north of the country, led foreign congregations (the White Fathers and the Burgos Fathers, among others) and individual members of the clergy (Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish alike) to take positions opposing the war and social injustice, resulting in their arrest or expulsion.59

The establishment of Protestant missions in Angola and Mozambique, and the concentration of specific denominations in specific areas, is a relevant factor in how vernacular languages, as well as other aspects of local culture, were employed by the missionaries in their evangelization work and informal educational activities. It also served to stimulate the development of ethnic identities, and thus in the context of Portuguese colonization, the missions’ work contributed to the formation of social identities. Through their formal and informal educational methods, and their involvement in secondary and higher education, they played an important role in the formation of national elites in the two countries, many of whom became leaders of the respective nationalist movements. With the liberation wars sparking increased aggression from the regime, some Catholic and most Protestant missionaries gave direct and indirect support to the nationalists.60

Notwithstanding the global changes after World War II, southern Africa still had governments dominated by white minorities in the Portuguese colonies, as well as in South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and Namibia. In Mozambique and Angola, particularly in the 1970s, denunciations of the colonial situation made by missionaries and missionary societies through their religious or global networks alerted international organizations to the state of affairs in Portugal’s African colonies. The United Nations and the World Council of Churches (WCC) were among the institutions that took positions on this issue. The WCC deserves special mention for its support for southern African liberation movements from 1969, and its Programme Against Racism from 1970.

Church and State Post-Independence

In 1975, Mozambique and Angola both achieved national independence. The two states adopted socialist policies and one-party states until the 1990s, when both held multiparty elections. War marked the modern history of both countries; even after the national liberation struggles had ended, both newly independent nations experienced internal armed conflicts. Despite the general political tension in southern Africa, the independence of both Angola and Mozambique, occurring in the context of the Cold War, was celebrated enthusiastically. However, the post-independence period of peace was short-lived for both countries.

In Angola, the MPLA proclaimed independence in the context of a power struggle marked by armed conflicts. Its major opponent was Jonas Savimbi and UNITA in the central and southern regions, and a new period of war for territorial control began, causing new masses of migration by people in search of secure areas. The “second liberation war” in Angola, which lasted from 1975 to 1991, briefly paused after the signing of the Bicesse Agreement, but its third phase began the same year, only ending in 2002.61

In Mozambique the independence won by FRELIMO was a challenge to the regional projects involving South Africa and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. The solidarity of the newly independent government with the Rhodesian and South African liberation movements transformed Mozambique into a military target for those countries’ armies—a situation that was worsened by the war led by the Mozambique National Resistance (MNR/RENAMO), which only ended with the General Peace Agreement in 1992, followed by the first multiparty elections in 1994.

As has been noted, during the colonial period, there were not only Catholic missionaries, but also a multiplicity of Protestant missions, missionary societies, and religious organizations in Angola, with different denominations dominating different geographical areas. Many missions had become “local churches.” National independence opened up new prospects for a more satisfactory relationship between state and church. However, the anti-clerical policies imposed by the MPLA contributed to tension in the relations between state and church, affecting particularly the Catholic Church.

In 1975, the confiscation of church properties and goods in accordance with the Lei dos Confiscos e das Nacionalizações (Confiscations and Nationalizations Law), the exclusion of declared religious believers from MPLA membership in 1977 into a context of one-party socialist state, all stoked the tense relations that would develop between the state and religious groups during the following decades. Relations between the Angolan state and the Church thus went from a situation of mistrust and confrontation that lasted until the 1980s, to a state of ambiguity and co-optation when the state used authoritarian policies to try to control the Church and, in the words of Péclard, “depoliticize the churches.” The ambiguity of their situation and the tense political context led to the churches general exclusion from the centers of power. Most of them concentrated on internal processes, rather than engage in with greater political questions.62 But in 1987, legal recognition of the churches and religious organizations mitigated these tensions.63

The 1980s and 1990s were marked by an exhausting war, and the worsening general crisis and stark socioeconomic needs led the state government to seek partners to help deal with the difficulties. The Church, already active in humanitarian, health, and education outreach and support, took on this role, and there are indications that it also cooperated in the processes that led to peace and reconciliation. The creation of Pro Pace64 inside the Catholic Church and the alliance between Catholics and Protestants should be highlighted in this respect.

For Péclard, a specialist on the Church in Angola, the Catholic Church took a route that could only end in a collision with the independent state, as can be seen in the Pastoral Letter of Angolan Catholic bishops of January 1978, and their positions during the decades of war that followed independence. It had previously functioned as an arm of the colonial regime, and was perceived as arrogant and accused by the MPLA of taking part in a conspiracy to destroy the revolution.65 Not having taken sides earlier, the bishops were nonetheless extremely vocal critics of the government, MPLA, and UNITA because of the state of the country. A summary assessment of the performance of the Catholic Church from the period of war up to the declaration of peace in 2001 suggests that it functioned as a humanitarian agent and was active in the struggle for peace.

Studies conducted by several authors, including Blanes and Morier-Genoud,66 show that the religious culture in Angola underwent considerable changes as a result of the political reforms after the 1992 elections, especially in the early 2000s. The founding and emergence of numerous foreign “charismatic, evangelical, and Pentecostal” churches67 changed the religious map of the country. Brazilian churches, such as the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and Maná, coexist with other denominations of Nigerian and Congolese origin. The early 2000s, therefore, were marked by much religious competition, especially in Luanda. Even so, the state maintained control of local religious institutions.

In Mozambique, the 1975 Nationalizations Law nationalized the health and education systems, among others and as in Angola, the churches saw their properties and goods confiscated and the bases of their social activities (health and education) passing into state control. This measure laid the foundation for the churches’ discontent. However, after independence, it should be noted that the Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations did not take joint monolithic positions.

In Mozambique, between national independence and the transformation of FRELIMO into a Marxist-Leninist party (1977), the relationship between state and church gradually became more tense, and just as in Angola, this came with heavier consequences for the Catholic Church, because of its collaborative relationship with the earlier colonial regime. The period immediately following saw this relationship weaken even further. The Catholic Church took a strong stand against FRELIMO. It criticized the government and the “Party” fiercely through pastoral letters, calling attention to the serious sociopolitical situation into which the country was plunged, and basically assumed the role of political opposition. However, from the mid-1980s, the impact of the war and natural disasters led the state to seek partners that could assist it. In this context, the churches and religious organizations not only offered humanitarian aid, but also resumed their work in cooperation with the state in areas such as health and education, often filling gaps left by the government in the management of social questions.68

Ecumenism united Protestants and Catholics in the search for peace and the desire for cooperation with the government. The peace process finalized in Rome in 1992 was in some measure the result of joint work carried out by Protestants united in the CCM and the Catholic Church. This was a long process marked by different phases of rapprochement between the government and RENAMO.69

In an analysis of the anti-colonial revolution, war and democracy, and the role of the Catholic Church in Mozambique, Morier-Genoud and Anouilh conclude that since 1975, the Catholic Church has been able to maintain its autonomy in relation to the State. The profile and social status of the Catholic Church has allowed it to maintain a position of high moral standing in society, with a permanent agenda of actions for the maintenance of peace and reconciliation. As in Angola, the political opening-up in Mozambique brought with it a religious pluralism characterized not only by the presence of multiple Christian churches and Islamic groups, but also by the growing presence of AICs and foreign evangelical denominations, particularly Pentecostals, with the particularly strong presence of the Brazilian transnational churches (Maná, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, God is Love, Brazil for Christ, etc.), all in competition in the public space. The Assemblies of God, Baptists, and various Ethiopian and Zionist churches arrived and enticed followers as well.

In the past, evangelicalism in Mozambique flourished in the rural areas due to restrictions imposed by colonialism. However, the expansion of such religious denominations since the late 20th century has been linked with the rapid urbanization of a rural population, as well as with the characteristics of some Pentecostal urban churches, such as the Brazilian ones.

The early post-independence period in Mozambique was marked by a tense relationship between church and state, particularly with regard to Catholics. After the religious opening-up since then, however, the relationship between church and state has improved, across all denominations. Through their actions, churches continue to strive for peace and reconciliation, and the construction of a democratic society.

Christianity in Women’s Lives

The political context in which Christian missions were established in Angola and Mozambique, coupled with the restricted sociocultural universe in which African women lived, particularly in rural areas, shaped how women were educated by and interacted within Christian groups. Throughout the colonial period, missionary education for female believers sought to prepare women to assume subordinate roles to their male partners—that is, to prepare them to be good wives and mothers. In Mozambique, Methodist and Presbyterian educational policies for women introduced during the Estado Novo illustrate this situation particularly well.70

The expanded educational offerings available from the 1960s onwards, created a wider field for change and opportunity for women. Taking advantage of this situation and appropriating the lessons learned in the missions, many women, particularly those living in urban areas, challenged traditional gender roles and options.

The public policies introduced by the new Angolan and Mozambican states, and the expanded presence of feminist organizations, offered more platforms for women’s voices. The democratic openness that characterized the 1990s, and the legal reforms aimed at ensuring gender equality, brought new challenges to Christian missionaries, both within the hierarchy of public institutions and in the work of evangelization and education.71

The transnational dimension of the new religious maps in Angola and Mozambique created by the establishment and expansion of new and diverse Pentecostal denominations introduced new challenges for Christianity.72 Therefore, as van de Kamp, especially, has noted in the case of Mozambique, these new social and religious contexts allowed women to create new identities, and led to an increase in “critical cultural reflections by women.”73

Discussion of the Literature and Primary Sources

The historiography of religion in Angola and Mozambique produced during the colonial period focused primarily on the Catholic Church, although some work was done on Protestant churches and missions, and, to a lesser degree, on the presence of African independent churches (AICs) and Islam in Mozambique. An important feature of these studies was their legitimization of the Portuguese presence in the colonies. Most of this literature was published in Portuguese.74 Primary documentation and institutional reports can be found in the central archives of Catholic and Protestant missions that worked in the two countries,75 in Portuguese archives containing colonial documentation,76 as well as in the National Archives of Angola and Mozambique. For the 1960s and 1970s, important primary and secondary information on religion can be found in various colonial repositories in Portugal, in particular those of the Serviços de Centralização e Coordenação de Informações (SCCI) and the PIDE/DGS Archives (the Portuguese political police),77 as well as in the national archives of Angola and Mozambique. There is little existing literature from the period between 1975 and the 1990s, and the studies that were produced during that period were mainly concerned with the social role of religion and associated topics such as nationalism, war and armed conflicts, peace and democracy, and religious freedom. However, is important to note the growth of religious studies on Angola and Mozambique after the 1990s,78 including on the spread and impact of new religious movements. The following list of references illustrates this, as well as the different approaches to and interpretations of the role of religion during the both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Islam has been a longstanding presence in Mozambique (particularly since the 19th century), and has become, in the early 21st century, an increasingly popular topic of research. Meanwhile, research on Christianity during that same period has tended to focus on evangelism and the AICs (in particularly the healing churches79). Islam has had minimal impact in Angola, but other research topics there are similar to those being discussed in Mozambique, with an emphasis on studying the messianic churches. Information has been published in French, English, and Portuguese.80 Masters’ theses and doctoral dissertations on religious topics are generally unpublished, but some can be consulted at specific sites.81

Given the growing numbers of new missions and missionaries in Angola and Mozambique—especially evangelical ones—and the expansion of Islam in Mozambique, research into religion needs to be broadened to include these religious trends.

Péclard, Didier. “The ‘Depoliticising Machine’: Church and State in Angola since Independence.” In Religion and Politics in Global Society. Comparative Perspectives from the Portuguese-Speaking world. Edited by Paul Manuel, Alynna Lyon, and Clyde Wilcox, 139–160. New York: Lexington Books, 2013.Find this resource:

Sheldon, Kathleen. “I Studied with the Nuns, Learning to Make Blouses”: Gender Ideology and Colonial Education in Mozambique.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 31.3 (1998): 595–625.Find this resource:

(2.)
By the agreement established between the Holy See and Portugal through the Padroado, the former granted rights and privileges to the latter, which also received duties to be fulfilled “aimed at fostering the extension of the faith and the empire” (Ferreira, Igreja Ministerial em Moçambique, 71).

(3.)
For more information, see Helgesson, Church, State and People in Mozambique; Silva, “Missões católicas femininas em Moçambique.”

(4.)
Henderson illustrates this situation statistically, giving the following figures for Catholic clergy in Angola: 1800:39; 1840:18; 1853:5; 1863:16; 1880:38 (A Igreja em Angola, 36); Ferreira in turn describes the situation in Mozambique during the same period: “Missionary activity became so weakened that by the mid-XIX century there was not a single missionary in the interior of what is now Mozambican territory, other than 4 or 5 Goan missionaries working in the area of Mutarara (74). For further information see also: Eduardo dos Santos, O Estado Português e o Problema Missionário (Lisbon, Portugal: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1964); Helgesson, Church, State and People in Mozambique.

(19.)
The coup d´état of 1926 instituted the Estado Novo (1926–1974) in Portugal, which brought the period of liberalism and the First Republic to an end. Also in 1926, Minister João Belo promulgated the Estatuto Orgânico Das Missões Católicas Portuguesas de África e Timor, by which lay missions were eliminated (Decree no. 12485 of October 13).

(24.)
Among the legal documents that defined the rights and duties of the “native” population, the Estatuto Político, Social e Criminal dos Indígenas de Angola e Moçambique of 1926 should also be noted.

(27.)
Continuing the policies for indígena education adopted during the Republic, Legislative Diploma no. 238 of May 17, 1930 intended to help the local population “to rise gradually from their savage life to the civilized life of cultured people in the overseas provinces”; while elementary education for the non-indígena “aimed to provide children with the basic instruments needed for all knowledge and the bases of general culture, preparing them for social life.”

(28.)
“The distinction between ‘natives’ (‘Indígenas’) and the ‘civilized’ portion of the population was formalized in the ‘Lei Orgânica da Administração Civil das Províncias Ultramarinas,’ of 1914, which was supplemented by the Law of Assimilation, of 1917” (Helgesson, Church, State and People in Mozambique, 156).

(29.)
Details on Rudimentary Education can be found in Ferreira, Le Colonialism Portugais en Afrique.

(34.)
For further information see Ferreira, Igreja Ministerial em Moçambique, 75; Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; Henderson, A Igreja em Angola.

(40.)
According to Helgesson, referencing documents on the establishment of the CCM, it was based on “individual membership of white missionaries,” with a “Council of Churches, Missionary Societies and Other Christian Bodies established in the Colony of Mozambique” (Church, State and People in Mozambique, 279).

(48.)
Adrian Hastings, “Politics and Religion in Southern Africa,” in Politics and Religion in the Modern World, ed. George Moyser (London: Routledge, 1991), 162–188: Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; Henderson, A Igreja em Angola; Eric Morier-Genoud, The Catholic Church, Religious Orders and the Making of Politics in Colonial Mozambique: The Case of the Diocese of Beira, 1940–1974, PhD diss., State University of New York at Binghamton, 2006;Eric Morier-Genoud and Pierre Anouilh, “The Catholic Church in Mozambique under Revolution, War and Democracy,” in Religion and Politics in a Global Society: Comparative Perspectives from the Portuguese-Speaking World, ed. Paul Christopher Manuel, Alynna Lyon, and Clyde Wilcox (New York: Lexington Books, 2013), 185–204.

(57.)
See Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; 2014; Souto 2014 for Protestants. For Muslims, see Edward Alpers, “Islam in the Service of Colonialism? Portuguese Strategy during the Armed Liberation Struggle in Mozambique.” Lusotopie X (1999): 165–184.

(59.)
Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; Morier-Genoud and Anouilh, “The Catholic Church in Mozambique under Revolution, War and Democracy”; Souto 2014.

(60.)
Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; Morier-Genoud and Anouilh, “The Catholic Church in Mozambique under Revolution, War and Democracy.”

(64.)
Pro Pace, a movement launched in 1999 within the Catholic Church to assemble different voices in favor of peace. The movement was followed by other ecumenical initiatives for peace and reconciliation, such as COIPEA (Inter-ecclesial Committee for Peace), bringing together representatives of the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches, such as CICA (Angolan Christian Council for Churches) and AEA (Angola Evangelical Alliance). For further information, see: Péclard, “The Depoliticozing Machine”; Henderson, “The Church in Angola.”

(70.)
Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique.

(71.)
For further and different information and approaches to this issue of gender and mission work, see also: Ann Ellis Pullen and Sarah Ruffing Robbins, “Seeing Mission Work through a Gendered Lens.” Social Sciences and Missions 28.3–4 (2015): 288–326.; Sheldon,“I Studied with the Nuns, Learning to Make Blouses”; Sheldon, Pounders of Grain; Silva, “Missões católicas femininas em Moçambique”; Arrington, “Making Sense of Martha: Single Women and Mission Work.”

(76.)
Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon; Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. See also: United Methodist Archives and History Center, https://www.drew.edu/library/methodist; General Commission on Archives and History for United Methodist Church (GCAH), http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15799co11123. For Mozambique, visit also the Arcebispado de Maputo Archives; the Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (National Archive) at Eduardo Mondlane University; and in the Ministry of Justice, the Aarchives of the National Directorate of Religious Affairs. In Luanda visit the national archive: Arquivo Histórico Nacional; and the archives of INAR- Instituto Nacional para os assuntos religiosos. See also: Arquivo da Secretaria Provincial da Congregação dos Espiritanos (ACSSpLisboa), Lisbon; and Archives générales spiritaines (ACSSp), Chevilly-Larue (France).

(79.)
Although there are a variety of churches known as healing churches, they share a fundamental characteristic, the divine healing effect through its miraculous action.

(80.)
See: Hastings, A History of African Christianity,; Helgesson, Church, State and People in Mozambique; Péclard, “The ‘Depoliticising Machine’; Silva, Protestant Churches and the Formation of Political Consciousness in Southern Mozambique; Schubert 1979; Schubert, A Guerra e as Igrejas.

(81.)
Access, for example, the libraries of different universities, or, the SCIELO—Scientific Electronic Library Online for PhD´s and Masters dissertations unpublished. Access also in Lisbon: Repositório de teses da Universidade de Lisboa, at http://repositorio.ul.pt/.